“Open Hearts Build Lives: Positive Emotions, Induced Through Loving-kindness Meditation, Build Consequential Personal Resources”.
October 28, 2008
Barbara Fredrickson and her colleagues just published some interesting new research in the “Journal of Personality and Social Psychology”. Here is the abstract:
B. L. Fredrickson’s (1998, 2001) broaden-and-build theory of positive emotions asserts that people’s daily experiences of positive emotions compound over time to build a variety of consequential personal resources. The authors tested this build hypothesis in a field experiment with working adults (n = 139), half of whom were randomly-assigned to begin a practice of loving-kindness meditation. Results showed that this meditation practice produced increases over time in daily experiences of positive emotions, which, in turn, produced increases in a wide range of personal resources (e.g., increased mindfulness, purpose in life, social support, decreased illness symptoms). In turn, these increments in personal resources predicted increased life satisfaction and reduced depressive symptoms. Discussion centers on how positive emotions are the mechanism of change for the type of mind-training practice studied here and how loving-kindness meditation is an intervention strategy that produces positive emotions in a way that outpaces the hedonic treadmill effect. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2008 APA, all rights reserved)
This research has many important implications for coaching, psychotherapy, education, personal practice and health enhancement.
Chapter 3 Choosing Happiness: Goals, Relationships, and Positive Thinking
September 27, 2007
Having just spent a day with Dan Siegel (The Mindful Brain) and hearing about neural plasticity, I was put off by the introduction to Chapter 3 and their belief in “biological determinism.” Realizing the authors and I come from different places, but are looking to the same outcomes, helping clients increase the happiness in their lives, I read on.
The three areas of focus are mentioned in the title of this chapter. I thought I knew a lot about goal setting and discovered a lot lot more. The power of relationships and thinking styles and habits are also thoughtfully explored. After I got over my resistance in the opening pages, I found this chapter very educational.
Positive Psychology And Weight Loss Coaching
July 27, 2007
Weight loss coaching is usually a combination of coaching, consulting and counseling. I’m a big believer in blending our expertise with our coaching skills. In this way, every coach is a weight loss coach — this issue is going to be raised by many coaching clients, because people are often successful in every area of their lives except weight loss. It’s frequently a symptom of people who are overachieving, taking care of everyone else . . . of our overresponsible, overdone lives.
Weight loss is about your whole life. If we only ate when we were hungry and stopped when satisfied, then no one would have a weight problem. If we only talked about food and weight issues in coaching, it would get pretty boring — and it wouldn’t be getting to the real issues. So we talk about stress, and what’s getting in the way of getting to the goal. It’s about overcommitted schedules, managing stress and managing feelings — using food to push through the day.
Positive Psychology exercises can help clients manage their mood and energy levels, give more time to themselves and change their self-talk.